Right Wing Propaganda! A wants nothing more than to keep the oligarchs in power. Group B is the voice of the unheard masses. We will rise up, and topple the corrupt regime. Group B will lead the people out of the ashes and into a new dawn!
(Group C is not associated with us in anyway, are just a lunatic fringe group)
You can’t have it both ways, malkav. If you continue to assert three or four times that I’ve written things that convey I have a problem with people have don’t like the ending of Mass Effect 3, and I respond each time by insisting that I don’t mind if people don’t like the ending of Mass Effect 3, there comes a time when you need to either put up or shut up rather than rolling out the charge yet again.
So, yeah, show me where I’ve implied, conveyed, or otherwise caused you to tell me three or four times that you feel I have a problem with someone not liking the ending of Mass Effect 3. And if you can’t do that, then acknowledge it’s your own problem and move on already.
-Tom
Can you point to what makes you think that, Kristopher? Is it a gut thing, or do you have a source for that? I’m genuinely interested in knowing if there’s any sign that Bioware expected a backlash.
-Tom
You are responding to something I am not saying, and asserting something I have never disagreed with. I have tried to explain what I am actually saying as many ways as I know how, so, y’know, figure it out or don’t. You straight up ignored the example I came up with of something that can easily be read as tarring everyone who didn’t like the ending with the same brush - again, even though I am sure that is not what you meant - and I don’t think there’s anything else productive to be said on the subject as long as you persist in maintaining that I am making accusations that simply aren’t being made. (If indeed there ever was anything productive to be said on the subject.)
I have on multiple occasions, in multiple threads on multiple forums written detailed, point by point refutations of the arguments disparaging the quality of Mass Effect 3’s ending. Forgive me for not having the energy to do it all over again now. My posts are still there. Go find them.
And the I didn’t need to delegitimize anyone. The label simply highlights the illegitimacy of their tactics and position.
Razgon
3006
Man, those Believers are really nutty, eh?
Kadayi
3007
The problem is you’re not justifying the ridicule. All I see in you Tom is man who (given his age) really should know better, trolling a community because their opinions don’t happen to reconcile with your own. ‘Prove I said that!!’ what is this Kindergarden? Jez…
No one is saying “public criticism” or “fan feedback” is a bad thing. Heck, it’s basically what I do for a job. But there’s a clear distinction between “fan feedback” and the Enders’ sense of self-entitled outrage. That in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. The bad thing is when it works.
How is complaining about something you’ve paid for outrage exactly? If you’re in a restaurant and the food turns up cold do you suffer in grudging silence or do call over the Maître d’ ? I think perhaps years of getting your games for free has blinded you to the fact that these people aren’t just fans, they’re customers.
As long as an ending provides a satisfactory conclusion I’d say generally people will accept it for what it is. The ending of the Walking Dead is hardly upbeat but I’ve not yet witnessed people demanding that Telltale change it. This notion that everyone who was unhappy with the ending of ME3 was hankering for a Blue babies end Vs one that was simply more cohesive & less jarring is for the birds.
I’d be a lot more swayed by either side in this debate if the extended cut ending had actually changed anything. It added some more detail, but the ending was still a wacky mess that didn’t live up to the glorious gameplay of the rest of the games. In my opinion, of course!
Someday I’ll play through the series, one game after the other, and try to enjoy the games without thinking about the terrible ending looming in the distance. I still hold to the opinion that the Mass Effect games are the best overall RPG series I’ve played, bad ending or otherwise.
jeffd
3009
Tom: quick question: Obviously you’ve got a negative reaction to Bioware changing (expanding; whatever verb you care to use) Mass Effect’s ending in response to popular outcry. Do you feel the same way about, say, Blizzard changing WoW character talents / stats / whatever in response to fan outcry?
I mean I get that there’s a qualitative difference between a game’s narrative and its mechanics, but the idea of a loud popular outcry causing developers to make changes to their games is a ship that sailed probably a decade ago.
davidf
3010
Ah man, well i hope i at least rate a polite, thoughtful, and articulate person who deserves ridicule. I can live with that… :)
I have no problem with a company balancing and tuning its gameplay after a game has been released. Preferably for reasons other than upset fans, though.
And, as you note, there’s a difference between mechanics and narrative. Consider The Sopranos. Can you imagine David Chase added new footage after the ending of the final episode of The Sopranos because people were upset? And some people were upset about the ending of The Sopranos. I see what happened with Mass Effect 3 as a similar situation.
-Tom
Why can’t more Enders be like you?
Frankly, if I was a member of some movement, I’d want a snappy title like “Enders”. You could do a lot worse.
-Tom
jeffd
3013
Is it that the narrative was changed at all that bothers you? Because there’s a pretty lengthy tradition of that in other media. Stephen King added like 500 pages to the Stand at one point. How many versions of Bladerunner have we seen? The original versions of The Lord of the Rings films were all cut down from their “definitive” editions, which were only later released on DVD. And then there’s the granddaddy of them all, the Highlander II: Renegade Cut!
Anyway, I haven’t seen the ending of the Sopranos (I lost interest in the show for some reason about two seasons before it ended). I kind of see your point, but I think - based on what I know of the Sopranos’ ending - that it wasn’t nearly as incoherent as the ME3 ending was. So we’re into another qualitative difference. :)
Something about this topic seems terribly familiar but I can’t put my finger on it.
I think the distinction there would be that in the cases you mentioned the updates were done to bring the film/book/show more in line with the creator’s vision, rather than make them more audience friendly. Stephen King added back a ton of stuff he had been forced to cut, Ridley Scott took out the narration and put in some more unicorns stuff, that kind of thing. And you’re right, the ending of the Sopranos was not incoherent at all, but was ambiguous as hell, which drove a lot of people right up the wall.
jeffd
3016
That’s true, and there’s a legitimate discussion to be had about whether or not a show like the Sopranos should end ambiguously. Probably at this point someone’s written a thesis on it. ME3’s ending wasn’t ambiguous. Or rather, in addition to being ambiguous, it was simply incoherent. It was like Shep goes crawling for the button, passes out, magic elevator brings him upward, and then:
My proposed alternate ending here has about as much to do with the previous 100+ hours of Mass Effect as the actual Starchild sequence, which I think is ultimately the reason for the outrage.
Incidentally my general feelings: ambiguity is overrated. I get this sense that there’s this idea in pop culture that things have to end ambiguously (or worse, ambiguity’s goth cousin dark) in order for a work to be taken seriously. This is a load of crap and it’s something that I think a lot of writers of middling talent buy into without understanding how to actually deploy ambiguity in the service of greater themes. For examples of ambiguity done well, see Infinite Jest or (arguably) The Sopranos. For an example of ambiguity for its own sake and the perils thereof, see: Mass Effect 3.
I’d give another couple of examples. Ambiguity done well: Blade Runner. Ambiguity done badly: Battlestar Galactica (the remake).
jeffd
3018
Another show I gave up on after a few seasons!
Scuzz
3019
Why should anyone care what Tom Chick thinks? :)
blah
3020
A precedent that was set by Bioware. If it was really only a handful of self-entitled fans, they could have easily been ignored and instead of you being upset they caved, and others being upset they didn’t change the ending enough we’d be talking about something else.
Besides, there are a handful of self-entitled fans in every game, book, movie, whatever, audience. Nothing says you have to listen to them. George Lucas is a perfect example of this. He has been bombarded by these kinds of people for decades. How many of those people who think Bioware has a right to their artistic vision have been dogging Lucas for years about his changes to those movies? I don’t really see how these fans are any worse than the Star Wars fans who use the “raped my childhood” nonsense when talking about Lucas. For some reason, though, Lucas is the bad guy in that case, but in this case the fans are the bad guy…doesn’t really make sense to me.
